I’ve spent a solid amount of time studying this photo trying to glean information from every vignette. Kevin Wolf’s omniscient presence shows the tiny little worlds inside a moment in time at a very specific place.

Today we have the fourth of our five Best In Show prize winners for the 10th annual Exposed DC Photography Show. We invited a panel of distinguished D.C. metro-area photographers to each choose their favorite photograph from the 47 in this year’s exhibit. The five winning photographers will each receive a $100 cash prize from Exposed DC.

Our fourth winning photo is “Second Coming” by Kevin Wolf. A well manicured golf course is a bizarre place for a nuclear blast, but luckily Wolf was there to capture it. This photo is actually of overexposed fireworks, but the choices Wolf made – like only showing the backs of peoples’ heads – create a wonderful, science fiction like scene. The full range of grays add a peaceful quality to an image filled with doom.

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Lauren Stockbower has worked as a picture editor for the last twenty years, including for The New York Times, Forbes, Business Week, and U.S. News & World Report. Previously, she worked as both a staff newspaper photographer in the Philadelphia area and also as a freelancer throughout Asia for eight years.

An educator, she taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design for ten years, and also at CDIA in Georgetown. She is currently an adjunct professor at NOVA in Alexandria, VA in the photography + media department. She also freelances as a picture editor for clients such as National Geographic Traveler, USA Today and The Nature Conservancy. She is also currently Portfolio Director for UFolios.com.

It’s been a great year of photography, and we’ve been thrilled to feature a ton of it here every Monday and Wednesday in our In Frame selections. Here are my top ten favorite In Frames from 2015. To have your work considered this year, submit your images to our Flickr pool or tag them #exposeddc on Instagram (and follow us here).

Don’t forget you have just a few more days to enter the 10th annual Exposed DC photo contest! Submit your best photographs from the D.C. area by midnight on January 6.

I’m in awe of how Kevin Wolf uses light in these two photographs. His fireworks image isn’t solely about the sparkling bursts of lights that are usually depicted in such shots—it focuses instead on the people enjoying the show. And I can’t stop staring at the night sky in his second photo, Star Gazing.

[Update – 9:00pm, July 15 2015: at the request of the photographer, we’ve removed the second photograph.]